News Comment/COMENTARI AL DIA

Memories of when I Was a Fascist/MEMÒRIES DE QUAN JO ERA FEIXISTA

Memories of when I Was a Fascist

by Jose Maria Aznar

Hitler’s Mein Kampf is on sale in Spain, but not Aznar’s Mein Kampf, published here as a world exclusive. Below: A bitter zar. Aznar boycotted by his own party at the presentation of his memoirs. Only his Catalan foreign minister Pique turned up.

Jose Maria Aznar is publishing his memoirs, but he has forgotten what he said when he was an activist with a Spanish Fascist membership card. For all who want sincerity as well as an unabridged memoir, this is what Aznar wrote when he was a Fascist:

In 1969, a 16 year-old Aznar joined the splinter group Independent Spanish Fascists: “With the history of Fascism in my family which I have, I could pursue a comfortable, easy and uncomplicated life signing up to the Fascist Movement. Instead I fight alongside the Independent Fascists to live the life of monk and soldier as portrayed by Spanish Fascism founder Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. They are the real reincarnation of his thoughts. Young Fascists are tired of giving without receiving, tired of pretty speeches, and they are starting from zero anew the work Jose Antonio had planned and which Spain still awaits. I have already taken my decision.”

In 1978, when 29, Aznar attacked the new democratic Spanish Constitution in “Winds that Destroy”: “Guernica has approved unanimously to withdraw the city medal of former Head of State Francisco Franco. As if this wasn’t enough they have also decided to demand responsibilities of the German government for the bombing of 1937. In Coslada, Madrid, the streets named after Franco and Jose Antonio will now be called after the Constitution. In Valencia Franco Square will now be called Valencian Nation Square. This is just the beginning. They are determined to erase history. While some are determined to erase Fascism, the others lower their heads in fear of losing their cards of democratic credibility.”

In 1979, when 30, Aznar attacked the new State of the Autonomies in “Union and Greatness”: “Spaniards have in front of their eyes a subject of the most serious magnitude, the so-called autonomies. In the early forties Luis de Araquistain wrote that the reckless game of nationalities is always dangerous in a country such as Spain permanently undermined by racial anarchy. A charade has been set up which offends common sense. The rehabilitation of the memory of Catalan president Lluis Companys (handed over by the Gestapo and shot), of inglorious history, is already a fact. Republic president Juan Negrin told Manuel Azaña in 1937: “If these people are determined to break up Spain, I prefer Franco.” Is it possible to find a more or less stable solution to these problems? Obviously not.”

In La AznariadaManuel Vazquez Montalban said: “Aznar, from his birth was convinced that you find God through the empire, and now Bush has convinced him that through God you find more easily an empire. The old Fascist slogan “For God through the Empire” has now been recalled and reduced to “For the Empire through God.” I reaffirm my belief that the Fascists were full of atheists and this is the reason they had to invent the Opus Dei. I see Aznar, whatever others may say, closer to Fascism than to the Opus Dei.”